comic

Pluralcomics

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A story made up of drawn images arranged in sequence, usually with captions or speech; a graphic novel.

   The artist spent two years drawing a comic about her childhood.

   Independent comics often explore themes that mainstream publishers avoid.

2. 2
   adjective

   Using the techniques of comedy; meant to amuse or entertain an audience.

   The play relied on comic exaggeration to keep the audience laughing.

   She delivered her lines with such comic flair that even the critics smiled.

   Similarcomedic, humorous, funny, amusing, witty

   Oppositeserious, tragic

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A performer who entertains audiences by telling jokes or acting in funny ways; a comedian.

   A seasoned comic knows exactly when to pause for a laugh.

   The festival booked three comics for its opening night.

   Similarcomedian, humorist, joker, clown, wit

4. 4
   adjective

   Relating to comedy as a literary or dramatic genre, in contrast to tragedy.

   Shakespeare's comic works typically end in marriage and reconciliation.

   The professor traced the comic tradition from Aristophanes to modern sitcoms.

   Similarcomedic

   Oppositetragic

   Note

   The genre sense is the word's oldest layer. It comes through Latin comicus from Greek kōmikós, 'relating to comedy', and that goes back to kômos, a carousal, so comedy began as revelry. Here comic classifies rather than judges: comic genius is genius in the comic mode, and a comic stereotype is a stock figure of comedy, whether or not it raises a laugh.

5. 5
   adjective

   Funny without intending to be; amusing in a ridiculous way.

   The minister's solemn tone gave the whole mishap a comic quality.

   Her efforts to look dignified while slipping on the ice were unintentionally comic.

   Similarcomical, ludicrous, laughable, absurd, ridiculous

   Oppositeserious, solemn

   Note

   Here the comedy is one nobody meant. In Charlotte Smith's Desmond (1792), the landlord's distress is 'excessively comique', spelled the French way. The laugh belongs to the onlooker, not to the person being watched, and that is what separates this sense from the deliberate, crafted sense. Context usually makes the difference clear. When it might not, 'unintentionally comic' says it outright.

6. 6
   nounBritishcountable

   A periodical for children consisting mainly of cartoon strips, jokes, and illustrated stories.

   The newsagent had sold out of the popular comic by mid-morning.

   Comics like the Beano have entertained British children for generations.

   Note

   In British use, the comic is the whole periodical a child buys at the newsagent, not any one story inside it. A reader outside Britain may more readily take the word as a drawn story. For a mixed audience, 'children's comic' or 'comic magazine' makes the periodical sense unmistakable.

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